Katie

When Susan had breast cancer, we heard a lot of lame remarks, but our favorite came from one of Susan's colleagues. She wanted, she needed, to visit Susan after the surgery, but Susan didn't feel like having visitors, and she said so. Her colleague's response? "This isn't just about you. " "It's not?" Susan wondered. "My breast cancer is not about me? It's about you?" The same theme came up again when our friend Katie had a brain aneurysm. She was in intensive care for a long time and finally got out and into a step-down unit.

Junior Katie Lou Samuelson of Santa Ana Mater Dei has been named the Gatorade state player of the year in girls' basketball. She's averaging 26 points and 10 rebounds for the Monarchs and has a 4.18 grade-point average. She's a 6-foot-3 guard. Two of her sisters attend Stanford. Eric.sondheimer@latimes.com

March 6, 2014 | By Christie D'Zurilla, This post has been updated, as indicated below.

Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus were supposedly girlfriends - but are they anymore? Comments Perry made on TV while promoting her Prismatic tour Down Under made their way halfway around the world, and Cyrus is not happy. It all started Monday on Australia's "Sunrise" program, when one of the hosts riffed off Perry's hit "I Kissed a Girl" to lead into a discussion of the "Roar" singer's recent lip-lock with Cyrus during one of the "Wrecking Ball" singer's shows. "Scandalous!" Perry joked, before explaining what went down.

Orlando Bloom and Miranda Kerr announced last week they had separated after three years of marriage, and "The Hobbit" actor is touching upon the results of their seemingly amicable split. "We love each other. We're a family," Bloom said on "Katie" in an interview airing Friday. "We're going to be in each other's lives for the rest of our lives. There's no question, for the sake of our son and everything else, we're going to support one another and love each other as parents to Flynn.

Regarding the adoption of little Katie, it's impossible for me to understand how any court could possibly contemplate separating her from a happy family. This case has evidently already created some mental confusion for Katie, for which McNamara is responsible. FRANK STRACK Rancho

Never have I been so amused and laughed so hard as over "Countdown to Turkey Day" (Nov. 19). The illustrations were very clever. Could Katie and Pete Maratta do another preparation for Christmas? --NAN JACOBSEN, Laguna Beach

"Safe Haven," the latest weepie from a Nicholas Sparks novel, takes close to two hours to get where it's going - the intersection of Lovers Lane and nowhere. Starring Julianne Hough and Josh Duhamel, this sloppy sentimental journey is long on beauty shots, short on depth and seriously intent on tugging your heartstrings. Indeed, it demands you reach for those tissues. Sob. The real cause for tears is that Oscar-nominated director Lasse Hallstrom finds himself in the Nicholas Sparks business these days.

Recently, my family and I flew to Los Angeles for a visit, and my husband and I took our two daughters to visit Disneyland. We brought with us our youngest daughter, Katie, who is 10. Katie has a developmental handicap and can't talk because of brain damage. She is, however, neither quiet nor withdrawn. She is a noisy little girl who loves life and all people. The world is truly her oyster, and what continually amazes me is that Katie always finds pearls. She always grabs your hand to shake it when she meets you and then she starts telling you, in sign language, what it is she's doing -- visiting Mickey Mouse, riding on a bus, etc. And she tells you all about it with a big smile on her face.

It's a shame that the makers of "Born to Be Wild" went to such great lengths to create an absolutely convincing gorilla via technical wizardry only to waste their efforts on such a trite, predictable comedy-adventure. Both Katie the Gorilla--the creation of special animatronics effects expert Tony Gardner--and young Wil Horneff, who are the film's endearing stars, and its serious animal-rights theme, deserve much better.

Katy Perry's “Dark Horse” video has been reedited to remove a quick scene that has generated outcry among some in the Muslim community. The scene in dispute showed a suitor being disintegrated, along with a pendant he was wearing that spelled out “Allah” (the Arabic word for “God”). A Change.org petition posted by Shazad Iqbal of Bradford, England, lobbied for YouTube to remove the video. But it was reedited to digitally remove the Allah medallion, and that version is now posted on YouTube and Vevo.

Katy Perry has big life events going on these days. First came the news that she and John Mayer had split yet again, and now the "Roar" singer is reporting that she helped deliver a baby. "Finally you can add 'helps delivers babies in living rooms' to my resume! It's been a miracle of a day...Auntie Katy aka Stylist Auntie," Perry tweeted Wednesday evening. She didn't reveal who the mother was, though on social media fans were congratulating Perry's sister, Angela Hudson.

Signs point toward singers Katy Perry and John Mayer having broken up again, according to reports out Wednesday. The split allegedly happened within the last few days, a source told E! News , which first reported the breakup. No other details from that person, alas, though E! says in the video above that it was Perry's choice to leave. Us Weekly chimed in with its own sources, one of whom said Perry's upcoming world tour was a point of stress in the relationship. "Not sure how long it will last this time but yes, it is off for now," another source told Us. Perry has been solo during recent trips to Milan and London.

When the world-at-large last saw Katy Perry performing her "Dark Horse," she was emerging from a crystal ball and strutting around the Grammy Awards stage as if she were "Sleeping Beauty's" evil queen Maleficent. Now, she's remixing Egyptian history so it includes some hot-pink palaces and some even hotter puffed cheesy snacks. The Egyptian soundstage setting of "Dark Horse's" official video is Candyland-inspired fantasy, as Perry sports neon-blue hair streaks and commands an army of "Avatar"-influenced Na'vi-like creatures.

SOCHI, Russia - Wearing a dark warmup suit with "USA" emblazoned on the back, Katie Eberling helps carry the 400-pound bobsled to the starting line and places it down on freshly sanded blades. She gives a reassuring nod to teammate Elana Meyers, her off-season roommate and the pilot with whom she has won two world championship medals. She smiles at Meyers' new brakeman, Lauryn Williams, a former track star who has been racing for only seven months. Eberling watches the pair as they start down the ice, following their progress as the sled slides into the first curve.

SOCHI, Russia -- With a heavy heart and a distracted mind, U.S. skeleton racer Katie Uhlaender pushed through her final training runs this week. Wednesday was the fifth anniversary of her father's death, an event so devastating she contemplated quitting her sport. Her two practice runs that day were among the slowest she had posted since arriving here nearly two weeks ago. "She tried to push through it, but it was an emotional day," U.S. coach Tuffy Latour said. "[Thursday] we can focus on the race.

As the school bus rolled to a stop outside her home, Beth Jones adjusted the bright-yellow document protruding from the pouch of her daughter's wheelchair, making sure it was clearly visible. In bold letters it warned, "Do not resuscitate." The DNR order goes everywhere with 8-year-old Katie, including her second-grade classroom at Laremont School in Gages Lake, Ill. The school is part of the Special Education District of Lake County, where a two-year discussion ended last summer with officials agreeing to honor such directives.

When kidnaped 12-year-old Kathleen (Katie) Romanek emerged from a parched cow pasture, it brought sobs of relief from residents and praise for the near-instant response from law enforcement. But the girl's 20-hour abduction that ended Sunday raised fears that this close-knit farm town is not the haven that residents had always imagined.

One of the most exciting sounds in pop right now is the melange of dance music, R&B and vocal pyrotechnics coming from young women in the U.K. Jessie Ware, AlunaGeorge and FKA Twigs all work in this captivating space, where bewitching vocals blend with avant-garde sonics and all stripes of danceable beatmaking. Katy B might be the one to take it to the U.S. pop charts. Her new album, "Little Red," is a forceful and fully realized mission statement of contemporary English pop. "Next Thing" throbs with the energy of '90s house, but given a modern digital urgency.

Dave Grohl was on his way to rehearsals for a TV special marking the 50th anniversary of the Beatles' U.S. live television debut on "The Ed Sullivan Show" when the panic set in. "Suddenly it hit me: Maybe I ought to listen to the record again before we rehearse it," the founding member of Nirvana and Foo Fighters said of his impending run-through of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" with guitarists Joe Walsh and Gary Clark Jr. for "The Night That...